Broken Moon: Part 1 (5 page)

He shrugged off her
hand, a touch too sharply. "We're almost there," he repeated, and
set off down the foot-worn path again, boots crunching through the
snow loudly amidst the whistle of the wind.

April swallowed the
growing lump of anxiety in her throat, waiting for a moment to see
if he'd turn back, but knowing it was pointless.

He was stubborn,
especially when he felt like he had something to prove. She wished
she hadn't said anything that morning. If she'd just played along
like everything was fine, settled into her expected role of doting
mate, everything would have been so much easier for her...

She blinked her eyes
against the stinging wind and fell in behind Harper, hurrying to
catch up as loose locks of red hair blew into her face.

"Harper, I
—" she had barely begun before her partner shifted into his
wolf form, light brown fur spreading across his body in place of
his clothing as his body changed in one fluid motion. In the blink
of an eye he was on all fours, sniffing the ground intently as her
apology died on her lips.

For all the things a
wolf could do better than a human, having conversations wasn't one
of them.

She looked away,
rubbing her eyes as though the wind was bothering her again,
waiting for him to catch the scent of whatever trail he was
following.

If there was even a
scent to follow

* * * * *

Cyan heard April's
voice somewhere in the distance, only for a moment, but his ears
pricked up at the sound of her and her partner conversing for a few
seconds. He growled, the intrusion of their voices an unwelcome
reminder of the human way of life he would soon be forced to return
to. He would have loved nothing more than to stay out here hunting
until night fell and he was free to curl up in some cosy crag in
the mountains to sleep.

But at the same time
her voice enticed him. It had been a long time since he'd slept
with the warm body of a female beside him, and longer still since
he'd dreamt about the possibility of a mate
—

He jerked his head to
the side with a snort, startling away the critter he'd been
stalking through the bushes. The human part of him was getting
impatient. It wouldn't be long before it forced him to shift back,
and then who knew how long he'd have to go without the taste of
fresh blood and the thrill of the hunt to satisfy him again. He
dared to challenge the human in the back of his mind a moment
longer, baring his teeth and listening for the sound of April's
voice again, but it was gone, lost amongst the wind.

With another snort he
lowered his muzzle back to the snow, trying to pick up the scent of
his escaped prey again.

There it was. Thin and
musky, and mixed with... something else.

His furred brow
furrowed, and he sniffed again, focusing in on the fainter scent
lingering beneath the first. It was definitely an animal, but not
one of the hares he'd been stalking so far.

He took a few paces
forward and sniffed again, before brushing away a tangle of bushes
with his muzzle to reveal the bare soil beneath. It was still wet,
sheltered from the snow by the undergrowth, and a clear set of paw
prints in the earth led off in tandem with the strange scent he'd
picked up. They were unmistakably those of a wolf, and if he could
still smell their owner's trail in this weather then they must have
passed by recently.

The fur prickled on the
back of his neck. The scent lacked any of the usual human touches
carried by a werewolf; the scent of fabric or leather or woodsmoke.
Whoever's trail he was following, he doubted it belonged to anyone
from the Highland Pack.

His ears flicked back
in the direction he'd heard the voices coming from, the conflict
between his human and animal sides forgotten as concern for his
fellow werewolves crept in to replace it.

Still nothing but the
sound of the wind.

Narrowing his eyes he
lowered his shaggy body close to the ground, prowling forward
through the undergrowth with barely a sound as he kept the faint
scent fresh in his nostrils, eyes fixed on the pawprints leading
away from him, in the same direction April and Harper had been
headed.

* * * * *

The wind wailed through
the hidden crags in the side of the mountain, carrying phantom
sounds to April's ears as she jogged, shivering, behind Harper.

She was worried now.
They'd come a long way from the camp. The sky was darkening, and
the snow was so thick that a return journey might prove impossible
before the weather let up.

Harper stopped
suddenly, standing stock still with his head held high, staring
directly ahead.

"What is it?" April
said, her eyes flicking nervously through the flurry of snow
shrouding the path in front of them.

Harper shifted back
into his human form and took a step back, breathing heavily. "It's
one of the ferals, I'm sure of it. I recognise his scent."

"So there
was
a scent," April muttered.

"Of course there was."
Harper looked back at her. "We can catch up to him if we're quick,
scare him off back to the other side of the bridge."

"We don't have to, it's
freezing out here Harper! Let's just go back and tell Blackthorn.
The ferals won't bother us in this weather anyway. They're probably
just as cold as I am."

"Why leave it with
Blackthorn when we can handle it ourselves?" Harper replied with a
note of irritation in his voice. "Let's deal with it now. It's just
one of them, I can handle him."

"I'm
not saying you can't," April sighed. "I'm saying you don't
need
to. Can't we just go home and get
cosy by a nice fire?"

"Later. Come on, we're
close to the bridge now." Harper shifted back into his wolf form
before she could respond, giving her an impatient bark before
hurrying off.

It wasn't far to the
bridge. April saw the robust wooden archway silhouetted in the
distance, stretching from one side of the jagged ravine that cut
across the mountain path to the other. It was the only safe way on
this side of the mountain to reach the higher slopes, and it marked
what most considered the border of Highland Pack territory. Beyond
lay cold and unwelcoming terrain, the place where they were happy
to let the ferals roam free so long as they never crossed over to
this side.

This time, it seemed,
Harper had been right. At the near end of the bridge a gaunt
looking wolf stood with his head bowed, either tearing at some
fresh prey or digging in the frozen ground as he snuffled and
growled into the snow.

April stopped,
crouching down to stay out of sight, her breathing quick and
anxious as she looked to Harper.

Her partner bared his
teeth, and before she could stop him he barked savagely, the feral
wolf jerking its head up in an instant to look their way.

Just run away. Just
run,
April pleaded to herself.
Just
get this over with so we can go back.

She was no fighter, but
she couldn't leave Harper to handle it by himself if the wolf
decided to stand its ground.

The creature stared at
them in silence, eyes shining through the blizzard like a rabbit
trapped in headlights. April's hands bunched into fists inside her
mittens, her eyes watering from the wind, but she didn't dare
blink.

Just run. Please just
run.

Harper growled and
lunged forward, and April let out a breath she hadn't realised
she'd been holding as the feral turned and bolted, streaking across
the bridge without a backwards glance.

"Harper, no!" she
exclaimed as her partner immediately gave chase, his paws throwing
up flurries of snow as he bounded after the fleeing wolf.

He didn't need to do
this. He didn't need to prove anything to her. Why couldn't his
damn instinct just let him stop and slow down for one moment?!

She stumbled after him,
the snow tugging at her boots and threatening to trip her with each
step as Harper raced to the end of the bridge and turned to cross
it, the feral already out of sight on the far side.

Something thudded into the snow beside April, and a
grinding
crack
of splitting stone
cut through the air from the mountain slope above them. She spun
around, confused, her feet still moving in the direction of the
bridge as dull panic built in her chest, feeling that something
terrible was about to happen that her mind hadn't quite realised
yet.

She cried out as
another scatter of dislodged pebbles landed beside her, followed by
a thick sheet of snow rumbling off the overhanging rocks above them
and crashing against the side of the bridge, chunks of shale
skidding across the wood inches in front of Harper amidst a flood
of white.

He finally stopped,
slipping on the snow and snapping his head around, surprise and
confusion registering on his animal features as April shrieked his
name. He looked back across the bridge, and she followed his gaze
to see the eyes of the feral waiting, watching, hanging back just
beyond where the wooden boards ended.

Harper let out a savage
bark and bounded forward, ignoring the snow and scattered rocks
beneath his paws as he ran across the bridge.

It wasn't far to the
other side, but it was further than it would have been to turn
back.

April could only watch,
her mind blank, barely registering, as another cascade of soil and
rock tore itself from the slope above, the main avalanche crashing
down against the bridge just as Harper was about to make it to the
other side. She lost him in the confusion of falling snow and soil
and rocks, the sound of tearing wood reaching her ears over the
rumble of the avalanche as a gigantic boulder tore a chunk from the
side of the bridge, the outline of tangled boards and rails
flailing through the air as they fell into the ravine along with
rocks and roots, and the shape of a single, light-furred wolf.

April stumbled forwards
on legs that refused to work, her panic rising with the deafening
sound of the rockslide until she felt sick. She couldn't tear her
eyes away from the bridge, hoping that what she'd seen falling
hadn't been there.

The rumbling dimmed,
pebbles and snowflakes peppering her hair until only the sound of
rocks clacking off the sides of the ravine far below echoed through
the blizzard. For a moment her heart leapt as she saw a pair of
shining eyes watching her through the snow, but they weren't the
eyes of her partner. The feral wolf watched her solemnly from the
far side of the bridge, the creaking wooden boards between them a
mess of splintered wood and fallen rubble, but nothing more.

Harper was gone.

# # #

To be continued in
Part Two, coming soon.

# # #

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Claudia King is a
writer based in the United Kingdom, she studied Creative Arts at
university and continues to maintain a passionate interest in
storytelling (both erotic and non-erotic!) across many forms of
media. She owns a banana plant.

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